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National's announcement that it intends to spend $212 million upgrading regional roads is not just a naked election bribe, but poor economics, Green Party transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said today.

"National plans to pay for upgrading regional roads from the so-called Future Fund - receipts from the sale of state assets. National have essentially sold our profit generating state owned assets to pay for regular upkeep of New Zealand roads. Every householder knows that is disastrous economics," Ms Genter said.

Today the Government raised the petrol tax yet again. The reason it has had to raise the petrol tax is because there has been a deficit in the money that is coming into the National Land Transport Fund, because New Zealanders are actually driving less. They have been driving less consecutively for 7 years now. There is not enough money coming in to spend on what the National Government wanted to make a priority. When the National Government came in, I remember it very clearly, because I was working as a transportation consultant for the New Zealand Transport Agency.

Eugenie Sage: Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Vote Environment for 2014-15 totals over $313 million, and 61 percent of that relates to the Ministry for the Environment's climate change responsibilities, and my colleague Kennedy Graham will comment on that. But 39 percent of the vote is for other aspects of environmental management, and a significant chunk of that covers freshwater. The Ministry for the Environment gets $14 million to provide advice and implement tools for water management. We live in a country that is shaped by more than 18,000 kilometres of rivers.

There was a sense of relief in the Christchurch Green Party office when word came through that the City Council changed their mind on the timeframe to complete the major cycleways project. It started off as a three year project, and then expanded to five years, then to eight years, and now it is back to five years. This is the right direction, though whether it is soon enough is debateable.

I’m cautiously optimistic of news that the government-owned company Research and Educational Advanced Network New Zealand Ltd (REANNZ) has signed a $65 million anchor tenancy contract with Hawaiki Cable Ltd for its proposed new second internet cable.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairman. This is the Government whose 2014 estimates contain a time bomb of fiscal deficit over the next two decades through a failure in carbon budgeting.

This is the Government whose climate policy is a mess. It has paltry targets with no plan to attain them. It has weak policy settings, so emitters have no incentive to change, and that, Minister, will kill the golden goose. But even worse is the failure to convey to the taxpayer the fiscal costs that its climate policy will impose on future generations.

On Saturday I went up to visit the families who farm on the affected land and who live close to the coast. I have to say the violence of this event terrified me. I have seen a lot of floods and slips over more than 30 years in our area but nothing as bad as this. The weather bomb hit Te Moehau, the mountain and gouged swathes of native forest off the back country slopes. Tonnes of water, trees and large boulders roared down the mountain and blocked up creeks which turned into debris choked rivers. The silt and boulders tore through fences and paddocks all the way to the coast.

I rise to take a call on the Vote Labour appropriation and it is kind of appropriate that I do that today given that yesterday there was a major celebration from 'The Living Wage Aotearoa New Zealand Campaign', which was celebrating the 20 businesses that have signed up to pay their workers a living wage of $18.80. I think that is something that we should celebrate, because the only way that workers are going to be lifted out of poverty is through decent wages and through employers modelling the behaviour that we would like to see other employers adopt.

I rise to speak on the second reading of the Land Transport Amendment Bill , which we are very happy to support, although we do note that it has taken quite a long time for the Government to finally realise that this is an issue that does need to be dealt with. As has been noted by previous speakers, it is unclear why this has taken over 4 years to come before the House. So many lives could have been saved if it had been implemented earlier. There is no question that simply changing the law is not enough to reduce the harm of drink-driving.